Wednesday, October 15, 2014

The very popular online magazine, Thousand Islands Life, is currently featuring an article by Patty Mondore reporting on her encounters with Loons on the St. Lawrence River in the Thousand Islands. Be sure to check it out for great pictures and videos, along with many other excellent articles. Go direct to her article through the following link:

Thursday, October 9, 2014

CLAYTON,
New York (October 9, 2014) – The Antique Boat Museum (ABM), North America’s
premier freshwater nautical museum based in Clayton, New York, will host a
cross-river, cross-border field trip on Tuesday, October 14.

Students
from the Gananoque Secondary School in Gananoque, Ontario will venture across
the St. Lawrence River aboard a Gananoque Boat Line tour boat to the ABM for an
educational visit.

As
part of an outreach program being offered by the newly formed Thousand Islands Boat Museum (TIBM) in Gananoque, students in wood shop classes (grades 9
through 12) will be working on building an International Optimist Dinghy,better
known as Opti, throughout the school year. The goal will be to have a small
fleet of boats ready for use in a sailing program at the TIBM in 2015.

The
primary objective of the trip will be to introduce and educate students about
the Opti and to expand their knowledge of the unique boating history in the
region, which touches international borders, through their visit to the ABM.
The field trip will be led by ABM Educator Julie Broadbent, along with staff of
the TIBM.

This
will mark the second trip in as many years for Gananoque students.

Located on the
St. Lawrence River in the 1000 Islands, the Antique Boat Museum features a
collection of over 300 antique and classic boats, among thousands of
recreational boating artifacts. In 2015, the ABM will host the 51st
annual Antique Boat Show and Auction, the longest running such show in North
America. For more information, please visit the Museum’s website at ABM.org.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Author M.A. Noble presenting Singer Castle president Tom Weldon with her new book, Taking the Gold. Set on a tall ship, the plot culminates with numerous scenes in Singer Castle.

Maybe
you know about Singer Castle’s hidden levers and secret passages. Maybe you
know the manicured north lawn hides tons of imported topsoil. But have you ever
wondered what that dirt conceals? Have you heard claims of a ghost that stalks
the grounds on full-moonlit nights?

Fact
blends with fiction in M. A. Noble’s novel Taking the Gold, set on
a tall ship returning to the 1000 Islands. The author, also known as Margaret
(Mag) Hockett, fell in love with the castle as a young woman employed by Dr.
and Mrs. Harold Martin in the 70s to do housecleaning.

“Every
detail of this replica of an old English castle and its island setting arouses
a sense of romance, mystery, and magic. I was thrilled when Tom Weldon invited
me to revisit the castle. I learned things I never knew as I dusted and
vacuumed each room.”

Margaret
worked for several educational publishers in California before returning to the
North Country. She now writes novels, nonfiction, and lyrics. In her first
novel, Taking Hart, also set in the Islands, teenaged Corey Worder
solved the mystery of his War-of-1812 ancestry and his mother’s disappearance.
Now, in Taking the Gold, he must set sail to face his father. As
they race to find the British gold, an SOS from Singer Castle means Corey must
forfeit the treasure. Or does it? The castle holds more secrets than anyone
could have guessed.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

On Saturday, September 27th
a group of 24 classic boat enthusiasts took advantage of the beautiful fall
weather and cruised from the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton to Singer Castle on
Dark Island for a tour of the castle. The five classic boats looked right
at home tied up at the castle’s South Boathouse while the group enjoyed the
tour.

---Jean Papke, Administrative Assistant to the president at Singer Castle, Dark Island Tours.